Happy Monday, readers, writers, and shark fans!
Before we went on hiatus, we announced our book imprint, The Shiver Collective, through which we want to publish poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and memoir that celebrate and examine nature, ecology, and the human condition. While it’s taken longer to get here than we originally planned, developing this book imprint was still something we very much wanted to do. So I’m incredibly excited to say that we finally did it.
Today, the very first book by The Shiver Collective, Lit Shark’s book imprint, is here, and that book is none other than End with a Kiss by Helga Kidder.
Helga Kidder’s End with a Kiss promises love and connection from its title alone, and this poet never misses. True to her earlier works, these poems are infused with human experience, contrasting persistent devotion to religion, music, and art with the contemporary embrace of sitcoms, Netflix, and social media. These themes are then lovingly blanketed by the complicated love we express for one another, nature, a higher power, and, sometimes, ourselves.
This is a glorious meditation on nature, the body, and the spirit. With echoes of Mary Oliver, Jean Valentine, and Mary Ruefle, and softer notes of Robert Hass and Lorine Niedecker, the persona flirts just as easily with natural landscape and political wrongdoings as with romance. These poems dovetail between the soft and subtle sweetness of recollected dates and food tastings, sharp-tongued, witty (I’d almost suggest flirtatious) banter over Netflix, flowers, and wine, and unapologetic declarations of love and justice. Unflinchingly timely and touching in today’s political climate, “you have to try this.”
Without further ado, here’s your first look at End with a Kiss:
Book Details:
End with a Kiss by Helga Kidder
Poetry Collection
ASIN : B0HQDNPM9V
ISBN-13 : 979-8167796379
101 Pages
The Shiver Collective
There are so many fabulous poems I’d like to share with you, but for today, I’m going to s hare two of my shorter favorites, and I hope you’ll share your favorites with the community when you’ve had a chance to read End with a Kiss yourself!
RAPTURE
Light scatters molecules
I can see like dust
lifted in air.
Light sings when it touches
my body. Each time it hums
a different melody
as it enters,
harnessed
by blood. It turns
into a lantern my heart holds
against the world.
A night light I rely on.
I have swallowed light.
My tongue wrapped
in sweetness.
WHEN RAIN SPEAKS
– after Edna St. Vincent Millay
Upended, my purse spills contents like clouds
spill rain full of ghosts tonight. They saw me
through the window of imagination, ambled
toward me, tiny bells around their necks, nosing
the glass. They came through the blue of catnip,
salvia, hydrangea, gentle like cats, those child
ghosts of shootings, of forgetfulness that a life
is irreplaceable. They call to me between rain
and rush of wind, knocking on the sliding door.
They ask me to stop the minds and hands pulling
the trigger. I listen to the crackle of the candle.
They pad away through hostas below the magnolia
that was slashed into a totem pole by disaster
I will continue to pray against.
Here is a little more about our fabulous poet, Helga Kidder:
Helga Kidder is a native of Germany’s Black Forest and now lives in the hills of Tennessee with her husband. She was awarded an MFA in writing from Vermont College. She is co-founder of the Chattanooga Writers Guild and leads a monthly poetry group. She has participated in workshops in San Francisco, CA, Rockvale, TN, and Auvillar, France. Her poems have been published in multiple journals and anthologies. Some of her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She has five collections of poetry, Learning Curve, Loving the Dead, which won the 2020 Blue Light Press Book Award, Blackberry Winter, Luckier than the Stars, and Wild Plums. Find her on Facebook: helga.kidder
We’re grateful to all of you for being here and hope that you enjoy Helga Kidder’s End with a Kiss.
And if you are interested in being a part of The Shiver Collective, I hope you’ll check out our submission guidelines.
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